The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas - El Camino ...

242 The Person of the Holy Spirit
of grace and peace; and also because the Holy Spirit must be grasped within
the Father and Son whose Union and Bond he is’;92 ‘since the Holy Spirit is
the Bond of Father and Son, wherever mention is made of the person of
Father or the person of Son, the person of the Holy Spirit is necessarily also
comprehended’.93
One can also observe the immediate soteriological dimension of this
investigation of mutual Love. In his meditation on mutual Love, St Augustine
had seen the bond of Father and Son as that in which unity and sanctity are
given to be shared within the Church. Thomas pursues this close association
between theology and the economy: it is through the Love which proceeds
from them that the Father and the Son love one another and love us. Thomas
said that,
In the same way that we say that a tree blooms through its blooms, so likewise one says
that the Father speaks himself and creatures by his Word, or his Son. And again, it is thus
that one says that by the Holy Spirit or Love proceeding, that the Father and the Son love
each other and us.94
The discussion of this soteriological dimension appears with more Wneshadings
in the response to an argument where, because of the way the
objection is formulated, and also in order to link up his presentation of
Love and Word, Thomas considers the Love through which the Father loves
himself. But, drawing on the context and the nuancings which he had
introduced earlier, what comes across here also concerns the mutual love of
Father and Son, since this is a matter of the same personal Love:
The Father utters himself and every creature by the Word which he begets, in as much
as the begotten Word represents the Father and all creatures. And in the same way, he
loves himself and loves all creatures by the Holy Spirit, in as much as the Holy Spirit
proceeds as love for the original goodness, the motive for the Father’s loving himself
and every creature. Thus it is manifest that, as with the Word, a second aspect of Love
proceeding is a reference to creatures.95
This discussion connects Love with the Word. The Father knows himself
through his divine nature, but he speaks himself in his Word. The Word is not
‘that through which’ the Father knows himself, but is rather the conception
which the Father forms or engenders by his fruitful act of knowledge, which is
speaking. Receiving the whole substance of the Father and perfectly expressing
him, the Son is thus the bearer of the creatures which he will express and
create: the Father achieves all things through his Son. In a comparable way,
92 In Rom. 1.7 (no. 73). St Thomas also notes in the same context that ‘the works of the
Trinity are inseparable’ (In Gal. 1.1; no. 7).
93 In 2 Cor. 1.2 (no. 10). 94 ST I, q. 37, a. 2. 95 ST I, q. 37, a. 2, ad 3.